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THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE
Victory hasn’t been achieved yet
Ripan Kumar Biswas
How do we define victory? The dictionary defines it as defeating an enemy or an opponent. Victory in war is defined as causing the other side to surrender or by having fewer casualties than the other side. Victory simply doesn’t mean a “win-win” situation or the conclusion of the conflict, it means more than a celebration, more than a treaty, or more than even surrender.
A common misperception of warfare is that when a war is “won,” all fighting immediately stops, and that all members of the losing side passively lay down their arms and surrender. The victory doers not mean winning the battle, but also getting the chance to live with basic human rights. Amid such developments and rights, Bangladesh celebrated the thirty seventh anniversary of its glorious “Victory Day” on December 16, 2008.
1971 was a year of national and international crisis in South Asia. The history of Bangladesh is implicitly tied to the partition of India in 1947 and therefore the tragic events of 1971 are linked to Britain’s colonial past. The Bangladesh war of independence in 1971 was one of the bloodiest conflicts in living memory. In an attempt to crush forces seeking independence for the then East Pakistan, the West Pakistani military regime unleashed a systematic campaign of mass murder which aimed at killing of Bengalis.
The Bangladesh Liberation War is a significant part of the history of the country, and lasted from the 26th of March 1971 until the 16th of December 1971. This then was a heady brew - psychopathic hatred, mixed with an Islamic and Racial superiority complex and religious fervour, which allowed the Pakistani Army to engage in a sustained killing spree. The Pak Army became involved in genocide of Bengali Muslims, Hindus, and intellectuals, artists and academics were rounded up and shot en masse as was observed from the killing fields. Unfortunately, victory came with a price and sacrifice, and a story of heroism and courage that every citizen of Bangladesh should know about.
According to “Time” magazine on Monday, December 20, 1971, U.N. did its best to stop the war by passing a resolution calling “cease-fire” and urged Indian and Pakistan forces to return to their own borders. But with victory in view, freedom-fighters had fought gallantly against the enemies to free the motherland and to establish democracy, secularism, and Bengali nationalism. To become the world’s 139th independent nation, Bangladesh suffered genocide by Pakistani army, which killed approx. 3 million people, raped 200,000 women, burned hundreds of villages.
At the thirty seventh celebrations, the people of Bangladesh are really facing the most daunting challenges while they are remembering the soul-lifting sacrifices and gallantry of the country’s bravest and enlightened sons, particularly in this month of December. The nine-month-long struggle that ended with the killing of teachers, writers, journalists, professionals, and social thinkers on December 14, 1971, just on the eve of triumphant emergence of Bangladesh as an independent nation, was an event that Bangladeshis would never forget.
Bangladesh has clearly failed to materialize the dreams of the freedom fighters and the values of the liberation war, which were secularism, democracy, ending the scarcity of essentials, freedom of rights, tolerance, liberal outlook and modernism and no religious bias. Political parties of all hue have formed government and ruled the country but failed to uphold the values of the liberation war. The Bangladeshi politicians have created an insurmountable political divide and put the country in a most vulnerable position.
The massive violence that occurred in East Pakistan in 1971 received worldwide attention at the time. People are aware of the Yahya-Tikka-Niazi trio, who aimed to crush the Bengali spirit once and for all. Today or tomorrow, people like Abdul Qadir Sheikh, a Pakistani student in the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, will feel guilty for the evil deeds of their elders. “It is just to tell my Bangladeshi friends that we, as young Pakistanis, confess the evil deeds of elders from 1947 to 1971, and that we are very sorry!!!” This is not the victory that the genocide of Bangladesh is now in the “Encyclopaedia of Genocide.” There is no victory unless the promised goals that were written with blood are achieved.
Victory is the opportunity to own someone’s own destiny, within the limits of reason and morality. Victory has to be balanced with order. One has the power to make their own priorities and to act upon them accordingly. But the victory has been tampered in Bangladesh time to time and people remain enslaved in the merry go round of betrayal and deception. Creation of a progressive, happy and prosperous Bangladesh and reaching its fruits at the doorstep of every citizen would have matched with the spirit of the liberation war. The victory would have then become meaningful. But the people had already become apprehensive about the sincerity of the leadership.
Victory retorts democracy. Functioning of government is another important factor for democracy. If the decisions adopted democratically are not implemented then the concept of democracy becomes an empty shell. Though parliamentary elections were hotly contested and placed, parliament never functioned as an effective accountability mechanism. Regardless of which party was in power, the main opposition party boycotted most of the parliamentary sessions, alleging government repression and impediments to voicing its views. However, both the big parties once again vowed to establish a people’s government in Bangladesh in their recent declared party’s election manifesto. Khaleda Zia, chairperson of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), promised to make Jatiya Sangsad the “centre of politics” while Sheikh Hasina, chief of Awami League, assured the nation to bring the “modern democracy” in the country if they would be voted to power in the December 29 parliamentary elections.
Apparently the concept that Bengalis were inferior Muslims or Hindus was not well understood by many Bengalis. It was the guise of religion that was used by the Pakistanis to trick the people. Bangladesh is still experiencing a significant rise in ‘militant Islam’ in recent years just like pre-1971 days. Are the country’s secular democratic forces safe? Is it too hard to put an end to the rising tide of violence, killings and maiming of the incumbent regime’s political and ideological opponents and minorities and to thwart the fast expanding activities of religious extremists?
Nevertheless, it would be fair to say that the proponents of democracy generally regard economic freedom as a key element in any democratic society. Democrats should stress the need for equality and social welfare as the core of the government’s economic policies. Policy makers including the politicians in Bangladesh hardly sit to debate over economic issues and take initiatives for framing medium to long-term planning for the next ten to twenty years as political freedom is always commensurate with economic freedom. Food-price inflation, at around 11%, is already the biggest grievance of most Bangladeshis. However, we appreciate Sheikh Hasina’s promise to increase the annual economic growth to 8 percent by 2013 and 10 percent by 2017. But she has not mentioned anything in details how she intends to mobilise resources for funding project investments to achieve and sustain such a high level of economic growth.
Ripan Kumar Biswas is a freelance writer based in New York.
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